With an easy country shuffle It’s Gonna Change conjures up images of flannel shirts, jeans, and high-top sneakers with a anxious but hopeful youth kicking about abandoned grain silos littered with broken whiskey bottles and crumpled cans of beer. It is a roots rock album that pulls a page from the Mellencamp and Young songbooks focusing on the struggle to make ends meet and that twitchy state of boredom that marks those final steps out of the teenage years.

Cassavettes puts forth a solid if sometimes predictable performance with the songs following closely the verse-chorus format that has been the hallmark of AM and FM rock. “Lightning In A Bottle” hints at their live sound with it stretching out past the nine minute mark and featuring several tempo shifts. The halfway point sees the band step back, stretch, and relax into a languid swing that would fit just right under the stars on a humid August night. In contrast, “On Our Own”, one of those post high school graduation anthems, has the band nailing that multi-part vocal harmonies backed by a wheezy harmonica, and acoustic guitar. It is easy to slip into the foot stomping and remembering what it was like to dig under the car seats for just enough gas money to make it over the state line.

Overall, I found It’s Gonna Change to be a surprisingly fun piece of Roots-Rock confection. Nothing earth shattering, just solid music that for me had me reflecting on those summer days and nights just after high school when everything seemed possible and the struggles profound. You can read up on the band over at their website and stream some of the tracks from the album over at their Myspace page.

Seeing as my Spanish is limited to “donde está la biblioteca” which in most situation is damn near useless, this one not excepting, I cannot write about the lyrical content of the album and with Google Translate helping me along I am just as lost as I was in high school trying to memorize how to ask for directions to the train station. However, I know when I like something and I like Hagalo Usted Mismo. I like it an awful lot.

Hagalo Usted Mismo tears by in ten tracks clocking in under 40 minutes, which for some indie rockers is epic, but for myself it is just enough to make me play it all over again to satisfy the jones for Chilean Rock that spans The Beach Boys, Beatles, Boogie Woogie, and even brushes up against some more traditional numbers. The sad part is that the band broke up so here I am late to the party and it’s already over. Typical.

Anyway, the highlights for me are the soft swing of “Cerrar Y Abrir” which has a sort of gentle Elvis Costello feel to it with its lush layers of cymbals and reverb damp guitars. The creaky percussion and wheezing reeds of “Agua Bendita” is hypnotic as the song lurches about drunkenly from chorus to chorus. My favorite track though has to be “Bestia” with its lilting early 70’s AM Gold melodies floating along on a lonely flute and bouyed by some truly crisp guitar work. It has to be one of the most satisfying Pop number I have ever had the pleasure to listen to, ever.

Los Tres prove that in Pop music you don’t need to have mastery over the language to enjoy yourself and Hagalo Usted Mismo is one such album that transcends language barriers. Do yourself a favor and grab this album and show some love to a band that after some twenty years unplugged.

One of the challenges that I set before myself was to explore more Jazz, in particular artists that a creating compelling and novel work today. The reason is that I am a hypocrite because of the fact that with regards to Pop musics (Rock, Punk, Electronic, etc) I crave and demand new releases, anything more than a few years old is passed over like day old sushi. However, with Jazz, I am mired in works often no younger than thirty years and that truly is a travesty as there are albums and artists that are making beautiful art who should be listened to. Nils Wogram & Root 70 is one such ensemble.

Nimble and articulate would be good adjectives as would delicate and gentle. Like Mulligan, Wogram takes a seemingly ungainly instrument, in this case a trombone, and transforms it into lyrical dancer that can move with both speed and grace. The opening track to Fahrvergnügen demonstrates his sensitivity and care with approaching his instrument as it features flowing duet with Hayden Chisholm on alto sax. Following is “The Myth” which showcases his sharp precision as he winds his way through tight clean lines.

Wogram, however, is not the only star in the group as Root 70, comprised of Hayden Chisholm on alto sax and bass, Matt Penman on double bass, and Jochen Rückert on drums shows themselves to be in fine form. Rückert’s drumming is crisp with restrained power that bridges nicely between the type of work heard some forty years ago and today’s desire to hear a sound that is more forthright–”Bird’s Trip” highlights his style of playing well. Penman is restrained yet warm as he hold up the bottom end and his solo on Desert is captivating.

Do yourself a favor and grab the two free tracks from the album, “Breathing” and “The Myth“, from his website. Fahrvergnügen is highly recommended, especially if you are like me searching for new sounds in Jazz that still satisfy your cravings for the past.